A stupid film. Oil prospector Lew Ayres (yes - All Quiet on the Western Front) is suspicious of payroll hold-up - frankly, so are we. Goes after culprits with no backup. Finds a man who can't lift one arm so shoots him. He later dies. Ayres returns body to home town, is fascinated by his wife Teresa Wright, goes to work for her. She finds out who he is, she punishes him, he knows, turns the tables, they get married.
Then he decides to avenge the dad man's honour and find the real hold-up perpetrator, does so and somehow accidentally kills him? I know. And rather than fess up, goes on the run and - get this - somehow manages to hurt his arm in the same way so he can't raise it either - a serious matter when it comes to giving himself up at the end (presumably this is some kind of bullshit symbolic or thematic mirror device).
I have to blame Niven Busch for all of this, because he both wrote and produced. (he was married to Teresa Wright then. It's no excuse.) An indie, released by RKO, photographed by Edward Cronjager so you can't see what's going on in the night scenes (actually more probably the fault of TPTV's rubbish print - Cronjager's good). Scored by Daniele Amfitheatrof.
Victor Jory (The Miracle Worker) is the Mexican priest Ayres tells all this to. Barry Kelley is the suspicious employer, who should be familiar - we just saw him in The Asphalt Jungle.
Seeing Ayres take a couple of tortillas made me spend the rest of the film thinking about a Mexican chicken dish I could make on Friday. (Then I realised I's already tried it - a Chicken Enchialda recipe - and it was 'stodge filled with stodge'.)
No comments:
Post a Comment